Ministerial Meandering

Loss at Christmas

“I really don’t like Christmas” - this is a phrase I have heard rather frequently this year, and not from a series of Grinches or Scrooges either.  For many people Christmas is a time of year that marks an anniversary of the loss of some person, some much-loved pet, or some important relationship.  And that is hard, opening up old wounds, and re-visiting hurts that cause pain.

Of course, throughout the year we will all have such ‘anniversaries’, and they will remain painful, whether they come in August or April, June or December.  The old platitude that ‘time will heal’ is true - but only if we let it.  That is not to say that we should never allow ourselves to remember the event or loved one that we have lost, but it is often the way in which we remember them that is unhealthy and does not allow time to heal.

There is a saying in AA, ‘that we should not regret the past, nor wish to close the door on it’, but that does not mean that it is a good idea to carefully dissect out every detail of what caused us pain.  Like pulling a scab off a wound that is trying to heal, we just end up making it bleed all over again.

I remember ‘saving’ a 6 year old girl in Sierra Leone who was being unintentionally traumatized by the nurses in the only hospital that was even partly functional in Freetown during the rebel war.  The little girl had been burned, and in order to make the burn ‘heal’, the nurses thought that they should make sure the wound was clean every day, so took to the girl with scrubbing brushes and a strong antiseptic - every day.  My first visit through the remains of the hospital was to the accompaniment of the terrified screams of this little girl having her daily ‘treatment’.

What the nurses didn’t know was that they were scrubbing off the thin, delicate, new skin that was trying to cover the burn each day, and so perpetuating the injury on a daily basis - to the persistent agony of the child.  All they needed to do was to cover the clean wound and leave it alone for a week to ten days, and then remove the dressing to find a beautifully re-surfaced skin beneath.  Time would heal - if left alone.

My point is this; Yes - I acknowledge that we all have psychological and emotional wounds that affect us at different times of the year when their anniversaries come around - and it is especially hard at Christmas time.  But we do not honour their memories by constantly stripping off the desperately healing skin, or ripping off the scab yet again to watch it bleed, and bemoan the fact.

A more gentle way to remember our loss would be by focussing on how the person, pet, or relationship made us happy.  It is not healthy to go on with ‘fresh’ grief year after year.  That is not what those we have lost would have wanted for us, I’m sure.

You may think, ‘It’s easy for him to say - who has he ever lost?  What does he know about it?’  Believe me, I have had my losses too, and, like you, I have wept over them - and some still cause me pain.  But I am not going to get my scrubbing brush or penknife out to dig out the scar to bleed again, or destroy the healing skin.  

I can look at the scars - all hurts leave scars - and remember; but not destroy myself in the process.  I think that’s a healthier way of honouring a precious memory.

Philip+

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